Meaning of terse | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Of speech or style: brief, concise, to the point.
   broadly
2. Laconic, terse.
3. Of manner or speech: abruptly or brusquely short; curt.
   broadly
4. Burnished, polished; fine, smooth; neat, spruce.
   obsolete

Equivalents

Examples

“In eight terse lines has Phædrus told / (So frugal were the Bards of old) / A Tale of Goats; and clos'd with grace / Plan, Moral, all, in that ſhort space.”

“Your last series contains some of the neatest, tersest, and most unpretendingly original criticism, I have lately met with.”

“The book contains some happily done portrait touches of Napoleon, [...] and this and other aphoristical sentences scattered throughout this volume, [...] form as terse and trenchant a character-sketch of the Emperor as may be found almost anywhere.”

“Many protested that they had nothing to do with the fighting. At a word from the General the soldiers ripped off the men's shirts and examined the front of their shoulders. If they found bruises that might have been made from the butt of a gun when it had been fired—the terse order was, "Shoot him!" And many of the young men of Trujillo had disappeared.”

“[...] [Samuel] Beckett has become virtually mute, musewise, having progressed from marvellously constructed English sentences through terser and terser French ones to the unsyntactical, unpunctuated prose of Comment C'est and 'ultimately' to wordless mimes.”

“Mr SPEAKER: If the honourable member could be terse. / Mr O'Flynn: I shall be very terse. It may be my fault, Mr Speaker, but I doubt if you have quite appreciated the point.”

“Having attempted to identify a role for the society and its magazine, Quest, "for the next 40 years", the society chairman, Rhea Williams, decided it was time to close. She announced the group's demise in a terse message to members following the annual meeting, which just 22 people attended.”

“'Laura!' The voice halting her was terse. Brusque. She turned. [...] 'Before I go,' he said, and his voice was terse, tighter than ever. 'I want to ensure you understand something.'”

“My voice was terser than I intended, but what the hell. The night was turning out to be interesting in some ways and extremely frustrating in others.”

“By Phœbus, here's a moſt neate fine ſtreete; is't not? I proteſt to thee, I am enamord of this ſtreete now, more then of halfe the ſtreetes of Rome, againe; tis ſo polite, and terſe; [...]”

CEFR level